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Exploring the word

07 Aug 2011 - Nineteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time, Cycle A

SAINT PETER IS elevated to our attention for at least nine crucial Matthean moments. This gospel is invested in the development of a singular disciple destined to become the keeper of the keys. Though Peter is called to discipleship in ch. 4, he has no speaking part on that occasion or up until this one in ch. 14, when he attempts to walk on water. It’s the first time in Matthew that Peter distinguishes himself from the generic group of disciples. It’s the moment that prepares him for his fateful confession in ch. 16: “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.” Up to now the 12 apostles have functioned like a conglomerate of pale witnesses to Jesus’ ministry. Occasionally they venture a question, but it’s “the disciples” who ask it—as if none of these men has yet found his voice in the commanding presence of the Teacher. Let’s face it: We’d likely be no different in the company of one who heals the sick, multiplies food, casts out demons, and restores the dead. Not to mention one who teaches with such authority that religious leaders are confounded. Once Peter dares to address the Lord personally on this fearful night, his leadership potential is out of the bag. Jesus seems to know it, too: From now on he’ll select Peter for his inner circle of three to go where the others are not invited. Perhaps Jesus continues to mull over the three in ensuing episodes, weighing their merits. Peter has a forgiveness handicap: “Lord, must I forgive my brother seven times?” Meanwhile the sons of Zebedee, hiding behind their mother’s skirts, crave the glory seats in the coming reign. Peter will make his daring confession yet follow it with a glaring lack of comprehension by rejecting any talk of the Passion to come. Peter is “blessed” for what the Spirit makes known to him—and “Satan” for tempting Jesus to seek a less costly way. Peter’s warring spirits are evident from this first stormy hour. He has the inspiration, energy, and bravado to get out of the boat, and a legion of doubts that cause him to sink in short order. This Petrine trait echoes again at the Last Supper, when Peter swears his faith will never be shaken, only hours before he will deny his Lord multiple times. “O you of little faith,” Jesus must chide his friend—and, by extension, us. For Peter is ultimately chosen to be the rock upon which the church will stand and, occasionally, sink like a stone. Peter’s flaw is alive and well in his 21st-century heirs. But as long as we mirror Peter’s persistent repentance, thankfully, the church will survive. Related scripture links Christians as sojourners: 1 Pet. 2:11 God passing by: Gen. 3:8; Exod. 33:19, 22, 34:6 Walking on water as a divine action: Job 9:8, 38:16 Divine victory over the forces of the sea: Ps. 77:17-20; Isa. 43:16; Sir. 24:5-6; Mark 4:35-41; Matt. 8:23-27; Luke 8:22-25 I am he: Exod. 3:14; Deut. 32:39; Isa. 41:4, 43:10 Other walking on water stories: Mark 6:45-52; John 6:15-21 Catechism links Jesus and the storm: CCC 448; 2602 Salvation: CCC 55; 122-133; 161; 169

Authors Alice Camille

Peter last supper Passion discipleship

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Dying for a slice of cheesecake?

04 Apr 2010 - Preaching the News for Sunday

"I shall not die, but live," the psalmist confidently proclaims this Sunday. If we wish to enjoy a long and healthy life, researchers warn, we need to carefully control intake of fattening foods. New research suggests their uncontrolled consumption leads to an addiction similar to that caused by cocaine. A new study in rats suggests that high-fat, high-calorie foods affect the brain in much the same way as cocaine and heroin. Doing drugs and eating too much junk food both gradually overload the "pleasure centers" in the brain, according to Paul J. Kenny, Ph.D., an associate professor of molecular therapeutics at the Scripps Research Institute in Jupiter, Florida. Eventually the pleasure centers "crash," and achieving the same pleasure--or even just feeling normal--requires increasing amounts of the drug or food, said Kenny, the lead author of the study. The fact that junk food could provoke this response isn't entirely surprising, said Dr. Gene-Jack Wang, M.D., the chair of the medical department at the U.S. Department of Energy's Brookhaven National Laboratory in Upton, New York. "We make our food very similar to cocaine now," Wang said. Coca leaves have been used since ancient times, he said, but people learned to purify or alter cocaine to deliver it more efficiently to their brains (by injecting or smoking it, for instance). That made the drug more addictive. According to Wang, food has evolved in a similar way. "We 'purify' our food. Our ancestors ate whole grains, but we're eating white bread. American Indians ate corn; we eat corn syrup." In related news appropriate to Holy Week, artistic renditions of the Last Supper have been used by researchers to track another suspected factor leading to overeating: meal portion size. Researchers (and brothers) Brian and Craig Wansink examined 52 paintings of the Last Supper from various eras and published the results in the International Journal of Obesity. Over the past 1,000 years, they claim, entrée size grew by 69 percent, plate size by 66 percent, and bread size by about 23 percent. Source: Articles by Sarah Klein for Health.com

brain paul j kenny pleasure centers gene-jack wang junk food last supper meal portion size food addiction fat

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In other words

20 Mar 2016 - Palm Sunday of the Passion of the Lord, Cycle C

Jesus sat down, all the apostles with him, and said, “I have looked forward to eating this Passover meal with you before I enter my time of suffering. It’s the last one I’ll eat until we all eat it together in the kingdom of God.” Taking bread, he blessed it, broke it, and gave it to them, saying, “This is my body, given for you. Eat it in my memory.” He did the same with the cup after supper, saying, “This cup is the new covenant written in my blood, blood poured out for you.” Jesus said, “Do you realize that the hand of the one who is betraying me is at this moment on this table?” They immediately got suspicious of each other and began wondering who might be about to do this. Peter said, “Master, I’m ready for anything with you. I’d go to jail for you. I’d die for you!” Jesus said, “I’m sorry to have to tell you this, Peter, but before the rooster crows you will have three times denied that you know me.” . . . Jesus went, as he so often did, to Mount Olives. The disciples followed him. He knelt down, and prayed, “Father, remove this cup from me. But please, not what I want. What do you want?” He went back to the disciples and found them asleep. He said, “What business do you have sleeping? Get up. Pray so you won’t give in to temptation.” No sooner were the words out of his mouth than a crowd showed up, Judas in the lead. He came right up to Jesus to kiss him. Jesus said, “Judas, you would betray the Son of Man with a kiss?” . . . They took Jesus to Pilate. Pilate asked him, “Is this true that you’re ‘King of the Jews’?” “Those are your words, not mine,” Jesus replied. Pilate said, “You brought this man to me as a disturber of the peace. He’s done nothing wrong. I’m going to warn him to watch his step and let him go.” At that, the crowd went wild: “Kill him!” They kept at it, a shouting mob, demanding that he be crucified. Pilate caved in and gave them what they wanted. . . . When they got to Skull Hill, they crucified him. Jesus prayed, “Father, forgive them; they don’t know what they’re doing.” . . . The whole earth became dark. Jesus called loudly, “Father, I place my life in your hands!” Then he breathed his last. . . . A man named Joseph asked for the body of Jesus. Taking him down, he wrapped him in a linen shroud and placed him in a tomb chiseled into the rock. The women who had been companions of Jesus followed along. They saw the tomb where Jesus’ body was placed. Then they went back to prepare burial spices and perfumes (from Luke 22). Excerpted from The Message: Catholic/Ecumenical Edition by Eugene Peterson (ACTA Publications, 2014); actapublications.com.

last supper Passion Crucifixion Passover

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Homily stories

29 May 2016 - Solemnity of the Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ (Corpus Christi), Cycle C

It was First Communion preparation day at our parish school—a day when the classroom’s textbook material comes to life as the children bake bread, sing their special songs, make a craft for homebound parishioners, and participate in a Last Supper reflection. I was in place at the Last Supper station. The children sat in a circle and we talked about how they welcome people to their homes. We read the story of Jesus washing the feet of his disciples. And we talked about what it means to serve. Then they took off their shoes and socks and I helped them wash each other’s feet, one little person at a time. When it was Addie’s turn to have her feet washed, I stopped as I looked at her little feet, stretched over the bowl. Around her ankle there was one of those flex-bands, the band that people usually wear on their wrists. The word on Addie’s band was MikeStrong. Mike is her dad and he is sick with stage IV cancer. An ache pierced my heart as I thought about her family’s journey. But then I looked at her face, full of trust and anticipation. And in that moment, I remembered the words her dad recently posted on his Caring Bridge page: “God’s love is manifested daily in the caring and supportive people of this parish.” This family is living daily the miracle of the loaves and the fishes. The love and generosity of those who surround them fills them and makes God’s love visible to them. In turn, they are a sign to all of us of God’s generous, incomparable, and inexplicable love. Together, we are Eucharist for one another, nourished at the table and sent to live God’s love and generosity in the world.

Authors Peggy Ekerdt

last supper First Communion miracles

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Homily themes

26 Jun 2011 - Solemnity of the Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ (Corpus Christi), Cycle A

This is the bread that came down from heaven. While the Gospel of John lacks reference to the Eucharist at the Last Supper, passages such as today's gospel show how deeply John was concerned with the Eucharist. Jesus' words make him the bread of life. Much as God gave the manna to save Israel in the desert and deliver the people from bondage, the food of Jesus' body and blood delivers us from death to communion with him in eternal life. The Hebrew scriptures liked to refer to the important story of the manna: "He rained down on them manna to eat, and gave them the grain of heaven" (Psalm 78:24); "They asked, and he . . . gave them food from heaven in abundance" (Psalm 105:40); "I am going to rain bread from heaven for you" (Exodus 16:4); and "For their hunger you gave them bread from heaven" (Nehemiah 9:15). Homily points Our society has a lot of needs listed in every opinion poll. Listing them doesn't solve anything. The life of Christ is the solution to every worldly problem. Freedom is obtained by those willing to die to both kinds of slavery, internal as well as external. A secure and just society can be had by those who put their trust in God and not in personal power. At the table of the Lord, we acquire what we need to engender the world we say we want. Are we willing to participate in that life or simply to worship it from afar?

Authors Joel Schorn

Bread last supper Eucharist Freedom

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Exploring the word

05 Apr 2009 - Palm Sunday of the Passion of the Lord, Cycle B

The Passion narrative is so enthralling on its own terms it can be difficult to keep in mind that it is not simply a drama about the death of Jesus. Gospel stories are deliberately told in a way that always invites us to find our place in the story. When Mark invented the gospel genre he made it consciously interactive, modernly speaking. Scholars point to his “sandwiching” technique of folding one story between the halves of another, deepening the contrast between characters and their choices. So we, too, must choose, Mark says with each comparison. Never is that more apparent than in the Passion account, where marvelous characterizations offer early church members—and modern ones, too—the opportunity to decide whether courage or cowardice will mark their own discipleship. The Last Supper narrative becomes the gateway through which the stories surrounding it are illuminated. The heroic self-offering of Jesus stands between bitter tales of betrayal and denial. On one side of the Supper an unnamed woman pours away nearly a year’s wages with the perfumed oil she uses to anoint Jesus. She reaps no personal reward for this action, but for her courage, prophetic insight, and self-sacrifice Jesus declares that her memory will become part of his gospel for all time. Quite an astonishing recognition! Compare her response to Jesus on that night with that of one of his 12 closest followers. Judas, who shares the indignation of others present at this “display” and “waste,” leaves directly to make a devil’s bargain with the chief priests over the life of his teacher. Which disciple will we be: the anonymous woman of wise action or the celebrated follower who does his evil under cover of darkness? On the far side of the Last Supper is Peter’s denial. While Judas’ betrayal simply hastened the arrest of Jesus that was already in the works, Peter’s disavowal of Jesus was indescribably personal and pivotal. Barely an hour earlier Peter had sworn that his faith in Jesus could not be shaken. Yet he slept through Jesus’ agony in the garden and did not awaken to the superficiality of his loyalty until it was three times too late. Mark inserts another nameless character here to underscore Peter’s plight—and ours—in the young man wrapped in a linen cloth who runs away naked from the dangerous hour. The cloth suggests the attire of the baptized; that it is swept away by a grasping hand reveals that outward signs of faith mean nothing if they are not also deeply internalized. Those who leave the side of Jesus in the critical hour are truly naked and vulnerable. Mark asks us to contrast all of these images with that of Jesus, sitting at supper, saying, “Take it; this is my body.” Take it, and never forsake it. Related scripture links What Christ emptied and regained: Col. 1:15-20 The story of Incarnation: John 1:14; 2 Cor. 8:9 Servant model of surrender: Isa. 42:1-4; 49:1-7; 50:4-11; 52:13-53:12 Treasure in earthen vessels: 2 Cor. 4:7-18 Catechism links Passion: CCC 571-618

Authors Alice Camille

passion narrative last supper gospel story

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